Posted
by
kdawson
on Monday April 05, 2010 @02:06AM
from the doctor-my-eyes dept.

ByronScott sends a snippet from Inhabitat that begins "What if you could light your entire building using no electricity or artificial lights – but just the natural light from our favorite star, the Sun? Enter the Sundolier, a powerful sunlight transport system that's like putting a solar robot on your roof to pump sunlight indoors. The manufacturer claims a single Sundolier unit can provide enough light to illuminate a 1,000-2,500 sq. ft. area [93-232 sq. m] without any other sources." The company's website is a bit thin on details, such as what happens on cloudy days, or how many days of sunlight per year on average are needed for the device to perform acceptably.

It's thin on the details because there are no details. This is just a flexible aluminum tube and a diffuser. The only thing different about this than the kits you can get at Menards is the big collector array which tracks the sun.

There's no solar panels in this system. On cloudy days, you use electric lighting.

Our Sundolier delivers sunlight so effectively that electric lighting can be turned off when the sun is out offering excellent opportunities to save electricity while reducing heat generation through cool indirect daylighting.

There's no mention anywhere, not in the inhabitat.com article, nor the companies website, that this does anything on cloudy days.

Considering it's for blunt transfer of light I think the fiber version might be cheaper too since you could basically make it out of the cheapest still-transmitting rejected cables.

I'm not sure how much the cheapest functional cable for this is though, or how flexible, although the real trick would be getting the light into the fiber-optics to begin with. Some kind of half-pipe and tube-collector design both capable of just being hosed down by a home user is obviously the best solution but probably also exp

If you are worrying about the tiny bit of VOC's from your houses wiring, then I better not tell you about what your carpet and the wood in your house is outgassing. or the paint on the walls (yes even the "enviro-junk" they sell to try and placate people like you).

The wiring puts out far FAR less than many other sources in a home even a LEEDS certified green home. Natural woods gas out nasties if you want to go looking for nasties.

Oh and dont get me started about the impurity of the gypsum in your wall board.....

Poor guy can't even go live in a cave, due to the threat of Radon. Seriously, if someone is that worried about the toxins in their house they should open their window and exchange them for the toxins outside their house.

I would never build anything with sheet rock. That stuff is fucking disgusting. Everywhere I want to live it always eventually becomes little more than a mold substrate. I want to build an earthbag+mud plaster home topped with decks and greenhouses

Fucking hilarious. After living in the suburbs for so many years, you start to realize that what most people consider a "house" is really an "apartment," seeing as how they're all identical and jammed right next to each other. You'd think Tony Soprano (rich, su

Fiberoptics would allow you to snake light to various rooms, into basements, etc. That seems more useful.

I think it would require a very thick bundle to bring in enough to usefully light a room, so could be prohibitively expensive.

As for lighting a basement with this, you would just need a place where you could reasonably have 2.5 by 2.5 foot - or 2.5 foot diameter - column (maybe smaller depending on construction, but the tube would need to be enclosed) going down through the intervening floor(s). Since basements are typically a single large room, doing this might be worth the cost of such a column - provided

When you have a big skylight but use tungsten lamps to light the same room, the effect is this weird blue/orange clashing effect where areas lit by the different light sources appear to have different hues. The same thing is common in grade schools or offices where blue light from the windows collides with

Also the same thing can be done with a single skylight in each room. Far more effective and gives you a beautiful view of the sky in every room. NOTE: dont put skylights directly above showers... A lot of people do this, ask hot air balloonists how many naked people they see through them.

P.S. if you have opening skylights you can significantly reduce your cooling bills as well. If you try and tell me about the "energy savings of the tube ones versus the real skylight. I laugh. a leaky reflective tub

They have a set of powerful light on the concentrator. That way, the same tube can be used by all.lighting. Otherwise, if adding lights and these, it is too expensive. Though to be fair, I suspect that this really is too expensive.

In other words, this is a pitch to foolish investors who are looking to put money into green technology, much like many of the "this project will fix the environment" slashvertisements that pop up from time to time.

The trouble is that most green technology is along the lines of cheap and simple, not expensive and patentable. For instance, this gizmo might even work, but is going to have far less effect on your greenhouse gas emissions than living near where you work or commuting by public transit. Similarly

Studies have shown that retail sales go up, productivity increases, and school grades improve thanks to natural indoor light. But the biggest gain is in the occupants’ health.

Is this true? I have a kneejerk reaction to "Studies have shown..."I guess there may be some benefit to SADs cases*.

*Though I can never decide if it doesn't exist or if everyone in London has it. Check out the symptoms; "...some people experience a serious mood change when the seasons change. They may sleep too much, have little energy, and crave sweets and starchy foods. They may also feel depressed. Though symptoms can be severe, they usually cl

It's a mixed bag. UV light is necessary for certain vitamin synthesis (not all vitamins are essential, you're body makes a few of them). UV is also good therapeutically at treating certain diseases, and UV light helps produce chemicals in the skin which assist in proper brain regulation. That said, UV light also is directly responsible for skin cancer.

I'll bet that these guys are promoting the good, and ignoring the bad. Odds are the light is filtered, even if filtered unintentionally, buy the first she

I recently had a "Sun Tube" (sold at Home Depot and Lowes) installed in my house as an experiment.

They cost about $153. It eliminates the need for a couple 60 watt bulbs and provides the lighting of about 300 watts.There appears to be no heat gain but I'm sure there is some.

I'm happy with the results-- some people are not. The light is not yellowy like the light we are used to - it's blue white. You look outside the window and it's the same color but somehow it seems different when there isn't a window t

you make a good point. even on cloudy days, its usually not to dark outside to read. I think this sort of option is obviously best for businesses, places that are active during the main part of the day. The whole thing is sort of useless for places that are populated during the evening and night hours, but libraries, offices, and other 'daylight hours' places, its a great idea.

i don't understand your negative reaction. i for one would love to be able to get natural sunlight in a room with no windows. and even if the room has windows, sometimes their placement means that the direction from which the light comes isn't convenient (think horrible shadow on book while studying with your back to a window). sometimes it's too bright. sometimes it's too hot, and you want to close the shades. sometimes you want to do the same for privacy. there are many potential reasons why this could be

This has lots of interesting uses, but homes are not generally the primary market. Light pipes are most useful for businesses. You want to build a big office building to minimize cost, which means that not everybody can have a window office. So what do you do? You put in light pipes so that you can significantly reduce your energy costs and significantly improve worker health and morale.

Same principal applies to apartment buildings, hotels, etc. Imagine a sun deck with outdoor-style gardens at ground level in a 20-story hotel. Imagine cutting the lighting bill for an entire office building (including interior rooms) to zero almost every day. And so on.

The basic reflective light pipe design dates back to ancient Egypt, according to Wikipedia, but I doubt they used tracking mirrors back then. I mean ostensibly, but really, why bother when you can just use a bigger collector? It's not like they were building high density housing back then.

You should not use organic materials to build those windows. It attract bugs,is perfect for growing up virus and other health threats, and are so easy to break that they dont protect you against thieves. Over that, you need to do permanently big expending on cleaning solutions.

This has been done in the 3rd world for ages. You drill a hole in your roof, mount a 2L soda bottle filled with water (and two cap-fulls of bleach to keep it clean and clear), and stick an old black plastic film canister overtop of the white lid to keep the plastic from degrading. The video of these in use is amazing. Sadly however it only works when the sun is up - which is most of the workday (12 hrs typically) in the tropics.

This was worth the article. I have always felt if we just thought about things more, there are natural ways to have things even better than we have now. Lighting has been something that was on my mind lately. This is giving me ideas.

Hey man... thanks for that. I'm glad to see how much easier/cheaper you can do it for at home and may actually make use of that kind of design for a shop or garage or something.

One thing I must say about the originally pointed out product and these bottle ones.... the light looks really appealing. It looks very natural and cozy, like when you have a well lit home that gets most its light from nice location and windows.

Some years back I stopped for a meal at a restaurant in the historical district of a small town here in California. The restaurant was a converted barn of some sort and had two large double doors for an entrance. During business hours, those doors were left open, as were another set of interior doors that led to an open air patio outside. Hanging on the wall by each sets of doors was a large 1-quart ziplock bag. The bag was filled with water.

Noticing the bags, I asked the owner about them. She told me they were there to keep the flies from coming into the restaurant. I asked how a water-filled bag worked to keep flies away, and she said, "No idea, but do you see any flies in here?" Indeed, there were no flies to be seen (though there were some outside). She went on to tell me that that they had a regular fly problem years back, and one day a local immigrant gardner suggested the bags. The rest, as they say, is history.

I'd guess an entomologist might be the one to ask, but have you heard of this technique being used?

I think my garden shed, which is too far away from the house to make running cables worth the
effort, is going to get two holes in the roof today.

I thought something like that at first, too... Then fortunately pondered the implications before getting out the
hole-saw.

Why does your garden shed have a roof in the first place? Mine keeps out the elements, rain in particular. Rain, which
has the most amazing ability to work its way into the smallest of cracks, trickle along studs, and drip into exactly t

That's great. It shows very nicely the difference between the western techno-fetishistic approach, that would produce big shiny solar panels at enormous expense to run the electric lights, and true human ingenuity.

That was cool. It's not an accident that this was invented in tropical Brazil. If insulation is a requirement for your roof (heating where required will dwarf light usage, especially with fluorescents), using sunlight for lighting will require different technology. But this is awesome for those areas, or non-insulated buildings in temperate or colder regions. It should be fairly frost resistant, having a relatively large thermal mass. In climates with snow it may explode unless you put a hole in the lid.

You can do the same with acrylic rods. We did that for a insulated ceiling building in northern Michigan. we had the top of the rod cut at an angle and had that angle set to the south east as lighting was more important to be bright in the morning. 3 foot long 4" diameter clear rod cost less than $40.00 each and the cutting and polishing was done on site with a saw and acetone. inside was crudely faceted to spread the light around, shaft was painted with white wall paint.. plus you dont get a heat

That's a really useful trick... Good for barns, garden sheds and places that are usually dark. Cheaper than a skylight and less maintenance as well, probably.

As for the high-tech thing mentioned in the article... that would be a lot more useful if the "lights" had a lightbulb fixture inside of them, and a system to automatically add more artificial light if the sunlight dims for a moment (for example, if a cloud passes). That way you get a constant brightness inside while still saving energy.

There was a story by Bradbury (sorry slow internet here don't want to look it up) where they had "picture" windows made of glass(?) with an extremely(!) high index of refraction. These windows had been left out in some scenic location (African savannah) and because the velocity of light was so slow through the glass, it would take years for the light to get through! Thus a "perfect" 3D display of whatever the window had been exposed to.

Sounds (extremely) farfetched but in "light" (ha ha) of the discovery of a method to slow down or even stop light (admittedly in a Bose-Einstein condescent in a near perfect vacuum just above absolute zero), it is not entirely fantasy. Not entirely.

The collector has servo motors so it can track the sun and maximize the amount of light sent to the diffuser. Otherwise it's just the same standard aluminum tubes you'd find in any solar collector installation.

My guess is that it tracks the sun.One big problem with a device like the one in the article is that by following the sun, the light level varies much more as cloud cover changes than light from a normal skylight does.

I have some 10 inch diameter tubes with a clear raised plastic cap, a reflective lining and a diffuser in the ceiling. The provide as much light as a 100 Watt electric light and because they are aimed directly at the sun, the difference in light level doesn't vary as drastically with time of

Don't know about you but I am not rich. Look at the fabrication work on that thing. For starters what do you do when the rain hits the reflectors. Water spots and wind blown dirt won't effect the performance of the reflector assembly in a detrimental way. I am sure that the proud owners will not mind in the least climbing up on the roof and cleaning the reflectors and admittance windows. Should be fun on a 12/12 pitch roof install. Dual tracking motors, those are really reliable and will never fail i

Reflective tubes and fitting collectors are known for decades now! Nothing new about it. Remember that Dilbert house some years ago? Yeah, that one had them too.It’s useless beyond passing one roof and one floor. But if that fits, it’s really great for places where you can’t use windows. Especially if the windows are on the sides, while the roof is above you. But if the roof is right above you, of course a simple window makes more sense. ^^

The Heschong Mahone Group analyzed test scores of over 21,000 students in multiple school districts. The study showed that students with the most daylighting in their classrooms progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests when compared to students in the least daylit classrooms. Heschong Mahone Group, "Daylighting in Schools" Report at www.h-w-g.com, 1999.In a North Carolina Performance Report, students attending daylit schools outperformed the students in non-daylit schools by 5%-14%. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Report, " Daylighting in Schools: Improving Student Performance and Health at a Price Schools can Afford, " 2000.A National Renewable Energy Laboratory Report concluded that students benefit from daylighting, both in terms of increased performance and general health and well being. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Report, "Daylighting in Schools: Improving Student Performance and Health at a Price Schools can Afford, " 2000.

Wow... "increase the speed of learning?". Given crackpotery on their site, the poor science, the ridiculous claims that instead of focusing on fucking light delivered, focus on subjective, unmeasurable bullshit, the complete lack of details, video, specs, etc. this product doesn't sound very serious...

Actually that is an important point. Most artificial light is so poor that it hinders whatever you try to do. It is well known how to produce better lighting, but it is just not done. When was the last time you experienced lighting that can adjust the color temperature, for example? That is quite an essential feature to keep your day rhythm working properly, and it has been shown to improve learning results significantly.

Wow... "increase the speed of learning?". Given crackpotery on their site, the poor science, the ridiculous claims that instead of focusing on fucking light delivered, focus on subjective, unmeasurable bullshit, the complete lack of details, video, specs, etc. this product doesn't sound very serious...

If you compare to incandescent light, this is all probably bullshit. If you compare to fluorescent light, then I believe it. Fluorescent light has been shown to cause migraines in a significant percentage of the population, and it negatively affects attention span in nearly everyone. Nobody knows why yet; maybe it's the flicker, which suggests that the latest high-frequency stuff might not do it; maybe it's the lack of spectrum, with emission centered hard on certain peaks, forcing you to work harder to see

Raising fish has given me a lot of insight into light. Put an incandescent bulb above a fish tank and you'll do better than nothing, but will likely cook your fish (and the light isn't enough to do much anyway). Put a cheap fluorescent bulb above a fish tank and you'll get enough light (but in the wrong bandwidths). Put a good fluorescent light above a fish tank and you can sustain plant growth.

It is obvious to other fields too, the best lamps used by quilters are ott (sp?) lamps. My mom swears by them.

Old news, the Texas State capitol had to be extended almost 20 years ago. The extension is like 3 stories underground. On the top 2 or maybe all 3 stories they added some skylights and windows so that sunlight could go down into the rooms and natural light could be available. Even if you are underground, it never feels like it.

Something like this one: http://www.sunlight-direct.com/ uses fiber optic cables to catch the sunlight and then send it around corners/to other floors/etc. It also doesn't work at night . . . yet. But throw in a few undersea cables (interlight backbone) and we could have a daylight exchange program with nations on the other side of the planet.

That was my take...what is old is new again, but they've been selling these in canada for about 10 years (at least). Because the collector is raised off the roof and half spherical, it takes a substantial snowfall to cover the light collector...its maybe ineffective 1-2 months of the year.

Though this one, looks far too complicated, with it's solar tracker 'n' all. Too much to go wrong for what has generally been considered a simple solution due to it's low-tech approach at getting light into a space.

However they all suffer from the same drawbacks. You want lighting when it's dark - not (just) during the day, so you still have to install conventional lighting too. Plus they aren't so good when it's cloudy. They also pump in all the solar heat as well as the light so you use more energy than you save cooling the place down.

There have been a few mentions that something like this would not work on cloudy days.

Without seeing further evidence to the contrary, I'd be more inclined to believe that it wouldn't work as well as it would on sunny days, but would still work better than conventional indoor lighting.

As gray & dreary as it may be outdoors when the sun is hiding behind a cover of clouds, it's all really more of a mental illusion. Measure the light with a light meter (as a photographer would use) and you'll find it's sti

This idea is not new at all...
I used to work for a company that holds the original patents on this type of technology (http://www.solatube.com/), and has making these types of things since the 80s. Their product was far less obtrusive, and from the inside looked a recessed can-light, and not the transporter deck from the star ship Enterprise. Their overall luminosity was far greater too, and multiple warehouses and factory floors already use this tech. The technology around carrying light through a t

This is a problem much more easily solved by placing miniature nuclear power plants on peoples homes to generate electricity for internal lighting. Obviously no one has considered the danger from indoor sunburn from these lamps and a rooftop nuke would be a much more reliable solution that a glorified and much more complicated, sun mirror.

What happens when it's cloudy? Such a stupid idea to use the sun for light during the day as it is *obviously* not as reliable as a rooftop nuke.

It's slashdotted, but reading people's descriptions, it sounds like this thing is just the Japanese "sunflower" fiber optic sunlight pipe from 20 years ago. I remember seeing it on a "new technology" show back in the early 90's. IIRC, it was the same episode where I learned that Brits spell aluminum differently.

I remember reading about this technology in the late 1970s or early 1980s in Weekly Reader, a print publication for the lowest elementary school grades in the U.S., designed to get kids interested in reading about a broad range of topics. One issue featured a Japanese office building that had a solar collector (a parabolic dish) on the roof, and then fiber optic cables that were run to various offices. Because the fiber carried so much of the sun's intensity, they had to terminate the fiber runs behind a diffuser (similar to what photographers used). I've been itching to see the technology reach the consumer market for years and years--I'd love to have natural light cycles visible in our basement rooms, and at the office I'd love to minimize our use of light fixtures when we could use natural light.

If you have kids in school who still get Weekly Reader, take some time to read it with them. I've been amazed how, time and again, their predictions and insights into new technologies have been right on the mark.

I've wondered for years why nobody made something like this... (Or have they, and I just didn't know about it?)

You just haven't known about it. This is a variation upon a theme of the solar tube [solatube.com]. You can even get them in Costco now for under $200 USD each. Though this company appears to be trying to patent this very specific design, a parabolic collector feeding sunlight indoors is not new, and much of the technology is in the public domain and used with varying degrees of success. Naturally, you'll have a higher performing system the more money you put into it, but a good ROI is difficult to achieve as with any sol

Incorrect. Most geodesic domes survive direct interaction with tornadoes. There is a cement dome home in the tornado belt that survived a F-5 tornado. with having all the exterior paint stripped off, but the building was left intact and undamaged.

Just becaouse most people are stupid and build their homes like flimsy boxes does not mean ALL are.